A new app called Locket allows you to earn money by displaying ads on your smartphone’s lock screen.

Ads are annoying, but would you voluntarily look at them if someone paid you to do so? One app developer is asking that question. Earlier this month, Locket launched on Android, and this new app will pay you to look at ads on your phone’s lock screen.

With the new version of it’s iPhone app, GetHuman makes speaking with a real, human customer service person that much easier, improving the customer experience and relieving customer stress.

If you haven’t yet heard of GetHuman, it’s a free service that helps a customer talk to a real person as quickly and as painlessly as possible. GetHuman turns the tables in your favor, allowing users to automate the process of dealing with automated answering services.

I give a big thumbs up to any tool that makes it easier for me to find new wines to sip. If you’re an oenophile like me, check out Swirl It, a new iPhone app to help you pick out wines at your favorite restaurants and bars.

On the “Our Story” page on Swirl It’s website, its team is referred to as “a bunch of boozers on a mission.” Co-founders Brittany Hawkins and Nic Werner built Swirl It to combat a common problem in the wine world: in order to discover new wines, you typically have to drink a lot of bad bottles. Instead of purchasing a bottle or paying a premium for wine by the glass, the next time you’re out to eat, you can use Swirl It for personal wine recommendations based on availability and your personal tastes.

Released just under four weeks ago, Twitter’s Vine app is now the quickest growing social media apps on iOS and Android devices, allowing users to easily create and post six second video clips with the simple touch of a finger.

Fashion makers have long been on the forefront of new technologies as the early adapters and often trendsetters for popular apps and social media. Brands like Target and H&M were among the first companies in 2007 to use Facebook groups and later pages to reach out to their loyal fashion followings, and Twitter and Tumblr have become a mainstay for the fashion elite to blog, post, tweet, what have you, a throng of mid-America style addicts.

With the growing popularity of tablets, one wonders if the familiar site of someone unfolding a laptop and perfectly positioning it upon a Starbucks table will soon be a thing of the past. Tablets are increasingly outselling laptops and the proof is apparent everywhere.

Released in July, the Snapchat App now places in the top ten most popular free apps for the Apple iOS market and the newly released Android version places 33 on the list of top 100 free apps in the Google Play market.

Unless you’re 20-something or the parent of teenager chances are you haven’t heard of this popular picture chatting app. The concept is simple the user can snap a picture, add text to it or draw on the image, and then set a time limit (three to ten seconds) for the viewer to see the image. The concept is that the image self destructs at the end of the viewing time leaving no trace of the picture or video behind on the viewers phone.

Gift suggestion takes the guesswork out of finding the perfect present. The Gift Professor algorithms and social psychology reinvents our approach to standard shopping.

A gift that’s as easy as a gift card but much more personal and unique. Sounds too good to be true?  If an app or website could promise you that, you’d make short work of that gift-buying list. GiftProfessor.com, a web- and app-based shopping tool, can help you experience Zen-like shopping satisfaction. OK, maybe not quite Zen-like, but it sure feels good to have a couple more people on your list checked off –all in one online stop!

Home entertainment is becoming a lot more exciting, courtesy of Comigo. 

Only a few years ago, few people could have envisioned much evolution to the way we watch TV. Today, Comigo is shattering our TV watching norms by taking television viewing beyond the TV set, connecting your TV to virtually any handheld device (tablet, phone, or laptop). It’s a new page in interactive viewing!

On the heels of the release of iPhone 5 and iOS 6, YouMail, the most complete call solution and management app for the iPhone, has just rolled out an update to the app that is its most significant yet. YouMail now includes in-app, numberless messaging that allows users to drop voice messages and other recording to YouMail’s nearly three million registered users across iOS, Android and Blackberry without even dialing a number. Users can also use this feature to drop voice memos and other digital recording to themselves.

With the release of the iPhone 5, the debate of which phone to choose, the Samsung Galaxy S3 vs iPhone, is hotter than ever. I weigh in on the pros and cons with my feedback on the Samsung Galaxy S3.

To be quite honest, I generally use my phone for email, voice calls, texting, calendar and not much else. So bear with me, because this review will only focus around the usability of these items.

The iPhone 5 was just released this past Friday; I’ve been pleased with my iPhone 4 for just over 2 years now so I was sure I would love the iPhone 5, but I couldn’t help but wonder if there was something better out there. I was super excited when Samsung sent me the Galaxy S3 to review; the timing couldn’t be better!