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Most college professors will tell students to put away their iPhone or iPod once class starts. But not Ken Joy. His class requires them.

Professor Joy teaches ECS 198H, Introduction To iPhone Application Development, to undergraduates at the University of California at Davis. On the first day of class in late September UC Davis became one of a growing number of schools that are tailoring classes and focusing academic resources on the making and selling of applications for Apple's popular mobile platform.

A professor for almost 30 years, Joy has mainly researched computer graphics and visualizations, until he and … Read more

Finding a replacement headlight bulbs just got easier for folks who have an iPhone 3GS, 3G, or an iPod Touch. Osram Sylvania offers a free iPhone app for the 3GS and 3G and iPod Touch from the iTunes App Store.

You can select a vehicle's make, model, and year of manufacture, and the app will display a list of nearby retailers are displayed.

"When drivers need to replace an automotive bulb, they don't always have their owner's manual handy or have access to our online automotive lamp replacement guide," Joe Verbanic, marketing manager for Sylvania … Read more

QR Code, a two-dimensional bar code storing addresses and URLs, is a widely used technology in Japan and elsewhere that can be scanned with camera phones equipped with the appropriate reader.

It's likely to gain ground quickly in the U.S. now that Google has sent out a QR code to 100,000 of the most popular companies in its Local Business Center. When those companies display the QR code, customers can use code-scanning applications on their iPhones and other devices to retrieve the firm's individual Google listing.

The only problem is, many of those QR code-reading apps for the iPhone just don't do a good job. That prompted me to sift through more than a dozen QR code readers to find some of the best. I came up with four.

NeoReader NeoReader is one of the most useful apps in this roundup. The program is simple, it's intuitive, and it does a relatively good job of reading QR codes.

NeoReader is an extremely simple app. When it's open, you need only to point your iPhone's camera at the QR Code, click the scan option, and you're all set. Within a few seconds, the app delivers the unique content directly to your iPhone. It works with QR (obviously), as well as Data Matrix, and Aztec bar codes. To ensure the app is working properly, you can even go to NeoReader's home page and scan the QR Code examples to see if it's returning the right results. But beware that the application works best on iPhones running OS 3.0 or higher. NeoReader is free, so it's worth trying out.

Optiscan Optiscan's developers say the application is the fastest QR Code scanner in the App Store. That's not necessarily true. But it's certainly quick.

Overall, Optiscan is a really nice QR Code reader. The application is able to capture QR codes on monitors, paper, and other places where you might find the code. Upon scanning a QR code within the app, you can view the company's QR code information. You can also save that data for later, so you don't have to come back to the QR code every time you want to view it. Even better, Optiscan allows you to share QR codes with others. It's a full-featured app that should satisfy most users. It costs $1.99.… Read more

A new version of Google Mobile for the iPhone is now available in Apple's App Store, the search giant announced in a blog post Wednesday.

According to the company, the improved application features a redesigned search results page, with more results than in the previous version. The app also opens Web pages from those results within the program, which Google says should help users get where they want to go sooner.

To make the app more customized to the user, Google has also made its Bells and Whistles feature more prominent in the new Google Mobile version. Users can … Read more

At heart, are dogs as unpleasant as human beings?

The question pummels at my sinews today because an iPhone app of unusual enlightenment has been brought to my attention.

It's called FidoFactor. And what sets it apart from all those fart-obsessed, teeny-titillating iPhone apps is that, to use a phrase created by the company itself, it's "like Yelp for dogs."

We've all yelped for a dog at some point in our lives, but staring at this concept made me think that this app (and its accompanying site) would be the equivalent of reading reviews from … Read more

There are many things driving the popularity and growth of the Apple's iPhone, but as we enter 2010, one analyst believes the addition of Verizon will be the iPhone's big new feature.

Gene Munster, senior research analyst for investment bank Piper Jaffray, said in a research note to clients 0Wednesday that he believes there is a 70 percent chance that Apple will launch a new iPhone with Verizon in 2010. Munster puts the timing of such a move around the middle of the year.

That makes sense, since Apple has used June and July to launch all three … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.--A renaissance is under way in the world of mobile-application development.

Less than five years ago, developers were just beginning to create high-bandwidth media apps with the help of freshly-introduced 3G wireless data networks. But the carriers weren't quite ready to open up that fire hose. Nor were the hardware makers, who were creating hardware designed mainly for business users who wanted to check e-mail and play a hand or two of solitaire.

Fast forward to now. Both sides are reaching a kind of equilibrium. Smart phones and handhelds like the iPod Touch, Nintendo DSi, and … Read more

Equipped with a great video player and easy touch controls, the iPhone is fast becoming a spot for Laser Disc arcade games of yore to get a second life on the go. First came Space Ace early this year, but for a roll of quarters, iPhone and iPod Touch users can now reach back into their bowling alley/arcade memories and get Dragon's Lair, which was released this week, on the App Store, too. It's a perfect adaptation of the Don Bluth-animated game that I remember all too well from many, many weekends at Chuck E Cheese.

For … Read more

Google is offering Groups to its enterprise Google Apps Premier and Education Edition customers, the company announced late Tuesday.

As one of the search giant's "most widely used applications," the addition of Google Groups allows users to more effectively collaborate with others within the workplace.

According to Google, companies will be able to use Groups "as mailing lists, but they can also share documents, spreadsheets, presentations, calendars, videos and sites with groups, instead of many individual recipients." The app will allow those users to receive messages in their in-box or in the Groups forum view. … Read more