Trying to find something to do this weekend? How about tonight? Goby can help. The app offers up information about all sorts of activities from dining to attending live music concerts to visiting museums or hiking trails. And thanks to the magic of geolocation, Goby will automatically find stuff near you — wherever you are.

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Goby covers every city, town, and region in the US, which means that you can find things to do near home or when you’re on the road. You can view results on a map, find phone numbers, and share activities through Twitter, Facebook, and email.

As with most apps of this sort, I’ve found that Goby is pretty good — but not perfect. For instance, when I searched for vegetarian restaurants, the closest it found to my home is 0.5 miles away — even though I live just a two minute walk from an excellent vegetarian sandwich shop. Your results may vary.

The app is available as a free download for the iPhone and iPod touch, and Goby recently launched a fee app for Google ANdroid as well. You can download it by scanning the barcode to the right.

A few months ago eBay launched an Android app for tracking auctions, making bids, and doing most of the things you’d expect to do with a mobile eBay application. The only problem is that it was limited to US residents. This week eBay took its Android app international, making it available in Australia, Canada, and the UK.

All available versions of the app support making payments through PayPal, searching for items by voice, leaving feedback, and viewing your “My eBay” information.

The company also announced that both of its iPad apps are now available internationally. The eBay Selling app is now ready for download in Germany and the UK, while the eBay for iPad app is available translated into French, Italian, German, and Spanish and available for download from iTunes in 77 countries.

via TechCrunch

Apple has launched an official app that lets you buy Apple stuff from your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad. And when I say Apple stuff, I mean physical stuff, like an iPhone, iPod, iPad, Mac, or accessories. Basically, it’s the Apple web store in mobile app form.

It’s kind of shocking that this app didn’t come out two years ago. The mobile app lets you place orders or pre-orders for products, which means you can use your iPhone 3GS to place an order for an iPhone 4 like the good member of the consumer culture that you are.

The Apple Store app is available as a free download from the App Store, but it’s only available in the US at the moment.

While you’d think launching the Apple Store app on the same day that the iPhone 4 goes up for pre-order would have been a good idea. But it turns out that the Apple Store web site has been down for much of the morning so far… and that means that when I fired up the Apple Store app this morning I was greeted with the familiar “We’ll be back soon” message. But you can check out a few screenshots courtesy of Apple after the break.

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Layar’s Reality Browser is an augmented reality app for Android and iPhone that lets you find real-world stuff by looking through you’re phone’s camera. Basically, you point your phone in a direction and choose the layer you want to use, and Reality Browser will show you icons for nearby restaurants, Twitter users, or just about anything else that can be plotted geographically.

Today Layar is rolling out version 3.5 of its Reality Browser. The new version doesn’t wait for you to open a layer or enter a search term. When you first launch Layar Reality Browser 3.5, the app will show you points of interest that are near you.

For instance, I installed the new version this morning and when I first launched it, Layar showed me a few local cafes and pubs, a Wikipedia entry for architect Louis Kahn, and tweets from Twitter users within a few hundred meters of my house.

The data is drawn from some of the most popular layers available to Reality Browser users. You can also still manually apply a layer find upcoming eents in your neighborhood, crime reports, apartments for rent, or other information.

Layar Reality Browser 3.5 is already available for download from the Android Market. The updated iPhone app should be available soon.

You can find more screenshots after the break.

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PayPal on an iPhone app

PayPal has introduced a new Mobile Payments Library for Google Android, which developers can incorporate into their apps. In other words, say you’re using an eBook reader or music player on Android and it offers the ability to search or browse for new books or music. If the developer used the API, you’ll be able to check out using PayPal.

The solution isn’t quite as elegant as Apple’s method for conducting in-app transactions. Basically if you purchase media while using an app on an iPhone, you’re billed the same way you would be billed if you downloaded media or an app from the iTunes Store. But using PayPal will offer developers a way to take cash or credit card payments easily just by signing up for a PayPal account.

Of course, Google and your wireless carrier dont’ get a cut of the action this way, but PayPal does.

PayPal’s mobile payment library is also available for iPhone OS developers.

via MobileCrunch

Most major cities in the US have curbside recycling programs, making it easy to recycle some paper, glass, plastic, and metal. But what about items that you can’t just chuck out with the weekly trash, like mercury thermometers, batteries, cellphones, or other potentially hazardous materials? There are a number of places you can take those items to recycle them — if you know where they are. And it turns out there’s an app for that.

iRecycle is an iPhone app that maintains a list of locations for recycling about 240 different materials. Just enter the type of material you want to recycle and iRecycle will spit out a list of places where you can drop it off.

As a number of people have pointed out in the App Store reviews for iRecycle, the app works best if you happen to be in a major city. But that’s largely because there are a probably more recycling drop off locations in big cities. But I gave iRecycle a test run and it seems to know the closest places to my house to drop off batteries and plastic shopping bags. So it does seem to work pretty well in my corner of Philadelphia.

You also might want to give a call to the stores or other drop off locations before hopping in your car and driving ten miles only to find out there’s been a mistake and you can’t actually recycle your 47 inch plasma TV at the library (but you might be able to at the nearest Best Buy).

But overall, iRecycle makes the job of finding a responsible place to dispose of your waste a lot easier.

You can download iRecyle for free from the iTunes App Store. And you can find more screen shots after the break.

via Mashable

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While some folks would advise against buying any packaged food products with more than 5 ingredients, odds are you’ve picked up a box of something yummy only to get it home and realize it has peanuts, fish, or some other item that you either shouldn’t or can’t eat hidden away in a long list of ingredients.

The best way to avoid this problem is probably to read everything carefully while you’re in the grocery store aisle. But who has the time? Now there are a handful of new apps showing up in the iTunes App Store that can help shave some time off your label-reading routines… plus help you identify items with long and confusing chemical names.

As a disclaimer, I haven’t actually been able to test any of these apps myself, because I have an iPod touch instead of an iPhone — and all three apps listed below require a camera.

FoodEssentials Scanner is a tool that lets you scan the barcode of a product to view food labels on your phone. You can also see highlights for  additives, allergens, or other nutrient or ingredient items. You can also scan multiple items and view them side to side to make a comparison.

FoodEssentials Scanner is available from the iTunes Store for $4.99.

If your problem isn’t allergens, but dietary restrictions, there’s another series of apps that may have you covered.

Vegetarian Scanner lets you point your iPhone camera at the list of ingredients. The app will attempt to auto-focus the camera (you’ll need an iPhone 3Gs to play), and compare the ingredients with a database to let you know if there are any animal-based products in the food.

At least that’s how it’s supposed to work in theory. The reviews on iTunes suggest that the scanner doesn’t work very well.

Vegetarian Scanner is available for $1.99 from the iTunes Store.

Halal Scanner is from the same developer as the Vegetarian Scanner. But instead of checking to see if there are any meat products in your food, it will check to see if the product is Halal, or permissible to eat under Islamic law.

Halal Scanner costs $1.99 from the iTunes store. There’s also a free Lite version which lets you browser the ingredient database, but which doesn’t work with the camera.

via Gizmodo and appmodo

Yahoo launched two new search apps for the iPhone and iPod touch today. Interestingly, they both rely on Google Maps to some degree, rather than Yahoo Maps. But that’s OK, because in one way or another, each search app is kind of awesome.

The first is the new Yahoo Sketch-a-Search app, which lets you find restaurants in any given area by drawing an outline on the map. You can draw a straight line, a circle, or an Italy-like boot shape and Sketch-a-Search will let you know where you can eat in that area. Tap on any pushpin for more details.

You can also filter your search results by cuisine, mood, and the number of stars the restaurants have received in user reviews.

The second app is a more straightforward search utility. But Yahoo Search for the iPhone doesn’t just provide you with boring looking blue links on a white background. Instead results are presented from high profile sites with iPhone-friendly links. Look up a movie and you’ll likely get results from IMDB, Wikepedia, and movie review sites. If it’s currently in theaters, you’ll also be able to find show times.

Look up a location, and you’ll get a map, among other results.

I’m pretty impressed with both applications. But it’s not like Yahoo! is the first company to launch food or general search apps for the iPhone. The company faces a fair bit of competition in both areas.

Yahoo Search and Sketch-a-Search are both available as free downloads from the iTunes App Store

via Mashable

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Google has rolled out a new feature for its mobile shipping site: Now you can tell if the items you’re looking for are in stock at partnering stores near your location.

The feature only works in the US. But if you’re in the States and you happen to have a iPhone, Android, or WebOS phone, here’s how it works. Just fire up your mobile browser and navigate to google.com. Click the “more” button and select “shopping” and enter a search term.

If the item you’re looking for is available in a nearby store, you should see a little blue dot in the search results. Right now Google has a small list of retailers signed up, including Best Buy, Sears, Pottery Barn, West Elm, and Williams-Sonoma. But I have a feeling Google will be adding new partners soon.