Want to figure out how to get more-efficient energy usage from your household light bulbs? Care to track your driving skills and see how to be more fuel efficient?

There’s an app not just for that, but for all things green.

The Apple App Store and the Android Market list many apps to conserve energy and find ways to go green. Many are either free or $1 or $2. They’re not as hugely successful as games or entertainment trivia, but then neither is the green movement. The array of green software applications is growing — and helping raise awareness about things all of us can do to be more environmentally friendly and responsible.

A good place to start: The Green Genie app will show you 100 different ways to go green, from bringing your own bag to the grocery store to ways to get paid for reducing your emissions.

“This is an app that pays for itself,” says Green Genie creator Brad Cracchiola, who made the app in his spare time. By day, he’s a sustainability engineer in Los Angeles at BMW Group DesignworksUSA. “Apply just one strategy, and you’ve paid for the app 10 times.”

Cracchiola has tried to add game elements to the app, to make learning fun. “Consuming information can be an overwhelming topic,” he says. “Making it fun makes it easier to digest.”

Smartphones are great tools for learning, in part because of their mobility. “It doesn’t matter where you’re at, as long as you have a cell connection, you always have access to the information,” says Provo, Utah-based Nate Younger. He is the co-creator of the Green Fuel app, which helps find alternative fuel sources for those driving non-traditional cars. “The iPhone knows your position.”

To read the full story: USA Today

Retailers have made a big step into the social media arena. In order to get the best deals, shoppers need to follow their favorite malls, shopping centers and stores on Facebook and Twitter. And, in the last days right before Christmas, “e-tailers” are making their e-mails sales ads, so only those shoppers who are signed up for the e-mails get special online sales announcements—which may be available for just one or two hours.

While shopping at brick-and-mortar stores, shoppers have found that, with the help of apps, they can get exclusive help and deals. They can also do comparison shopping by simply scanning a bar code, as an app will tell them if the item can be found cheaper a couple of miles down the road or online.

But this is only the beginning. Next year will be unlike any we’ve ever experienced. By then, depending on what you’re signed up for, when you simply walk by a store in the mall, you’ll get an e-mail inviting you to stop in for a special deal. But, more than that, you’ll likely be able to complete a full transaction on your phone. YEP. Imagine walking into a store and finding that perfect wooden salad bowl set, but the line is out the door. You would just scan the bar code into your phone and then actually buy it, with instructions to pick it up later or have it shipped, according to Lorél Marketing Group in Valley Forge, which handles marketing for the King of Prussia Mall.

If you’re the person who says, “Listen, I’m not high-tech,” “I don’t have a Facebook account,” or “I don’t even text,” don’t stick your head in the sand. By next year, you’ll need to do these things to get the best prices.

Main Line Today “In the Know” Blog by Tracy Davidson

Kim Komando shares with USA Today apps on your iPhone or iPod Touch that can help you stick to your resolution in 2010!

Unless specified, these apps are free.

Save money

Mint.com Personal Finance puts your finances at your fingertips. Track investments, and credit card and bank account balances. Create a budget so you always know where you stand. Then, see where you’re spending your money each month. The app works in conjunction with Mint’s site.

Find a new job

Search for jobs across multiple job boards using Indeed.com’s Job Search. Or, find listings on employers’ sites with LinkUp Job Search Engine. Use 50 Interview Questions & Answers Lite to prepare for interviews. If you need help with your resume and career planning, try Career Rescue ($1.99). It offers a wealth of advice to jump-start your search.

Lose weight

Calorie Counter & Diet Tracker helps you set a goal for daily caloric intake. You can then track meals and exercise. There are more than 250,000 foods in the database. See how many calories you have left for the day at a glance. Track major nutrients like fat, protein and fiber. Progress reports keep you motivated. Or, get support via MyFitnessPal’s site.

Exercise

Body Fitness is an exercise journal. The database contains hundreds of exercises that you can track. Track the sets and reps and add notes to entries. You can also find new exercises to try. Exercises are divided by type; animations show you how to perform them.

Quit smoking

Sick of Smoking ($1.99) provides tips to help you quit smoking. It also tracks how many cigarettes you smoke, helping you lessen nicotine addiction. Sick of Smoking also provides motivation. See how much you’ve saved and how your health is improving.

Drink less

Drink Less Alcohol Tracker ($1.99) helps you watch your alcohol intake. It tracks the money you spend and the amount you drink. You’ll see how your drinking has decreased and how much you’ve saved. The app also provides facts to help you drink less. You can even set up a reminder message as your wallpaper.

Beat stress

Stress Check will help you assess your stress level. Just answer the quick 20-question assessment. Then, see where the stress is coming from. Other apps will help you relax and reduce stress. For example, White Noise Lite plays soothing sounds like waves and rain. It will help you fall asleep or block out a noisy, stressful environment.

Volunteer

Catalista helps you find volunteer opportunities with local nonprofits. You can also invite friends to volunteer via e-mail or Facebook. Catalista will also track the time you spend volunteering. This is handy if you get credit from school or work.

The Extraordinaries lets you volunteer wherever you are. It lists microvolunteerism opportunities, many of which can be completed on a phone. For example, tag photos or translate text.

Improve your education

Many apps will help you improve your education. Prepare for college entrance exams or professional exams. Enter the name of an exam for apps that will help you prepare. For example, there’s Kaplan GRE Exam Vocabulary Flashcards ($4.99). Or, prepare for the SAT with SAT Math Review ($2.99).

Get organized

If you want to be more productive and organized, you need 2Do ($5.99). This handy app helps you get tasks under control. Group related tasks by category. Then, view tasks on tabbed calendars. Or, view all categories on a single calendar. Then, get notifications and e-mail alerts of upcoming tasks.

Get motivation

Finally, no matter your resolution, you’ll need motivation. MyinstantCOACH offers support and motivation. Learn how to overcome barriers to reaching your goals. And send reminders via text messaging. Streaks Motivational Calendar ($1.99) uses calendars to help you achieve goals. The idea is to keep the streak going. At a quick glance, you’ll see how well you’re sticking to your resolutions.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/kimkomando/2009-12-31-resolutions-apps_N.htm

Those high-powered smartphones that can access the Web from virtually anywhere may be the best thing that’s happened in years to one of the oldest and most beleaguered of traditional media: radio.

Local stations are racing to create software applications — called apps — and appealing talk and music programming to help them reach the burgeoning number of consumers who see their iPhones, BlackBerrys and Droids as portable entertainment devices.

With the help of apps, smartphone users can listen to live broadcasts from hundreds of radio stations as well as services such as Pandora that offer music tailored to the listener’s taste.

“It’s extremely meaningful,” Clear Channel Executive Vice President Evan Harrison says. About a year after the No. 1 radio company introduced its iHeartRadio app for iPhones, phone users account for 10% of its digital audience.

“We expect to at least double that number” in 2010, he says. “That’s a modest goal.” Its app for Android phones comes out on Wednesday.

The company attracts about 28 million unique visitors a month, up 30% vs. last year.

CBS Interactive Music Group President David Goodman also is upbeat. “In the last seven months, our streaming audience has doubled,” he says. “It’s a rocketship in listenership.”

Radio could use some encouraging news. Industry ad revenue fell 21%, to $11.8 billion, in the first nine months of 2009, according to the Radio Advertising Bureau.

While digital services account for just 3% of revenue, it’s the only field that’s been growing. Clear Channel grabbed attention last year when it said about 5% of its $3.3 billion in revenue came from digital. But competition is intense.

Pandora has 40 million registered users and is adding more than 80,000 a day — half from smartphones. It recently began to sell audio ads, and they’ll likely come from budgets that would have been spent at traditional players.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/media/2009-12-20-radio-apps-smartphones_N.htm

Bogus reviews have landed Chinese iPhone app developer Molinker in deep trouble, resulting in all 1000-plus of its apps being removed and banned from the App Store. This is great news for consumers who are tired of downloading subpar apps based on inflated reviews, and bad news for companies looking to shill their products with internal misdeeds.

Molinker was accused of masterminding fake five-star reviews of its products, likely by offering free apps for five-star reviews. Whatever the case, at least one of Molinker’s apps, ColorMagic, made it to Staff Favorites on the iTunes App Store.

The discovery of the phony reviews was made by a frequent reader of iPhoneography, known only as SCW, who recognized a similar erratic and poorly-written tone to many 5-star reviews of Molinker apps. SCW wrote a (long) letter to Phil Schiller, senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, revealing the major fraud. According to the e-mail, SCW “looked at 44 of the reviewers who posted reviews for this Molinker Inc app ‘NightCam Pro’ & EVERY Review except 2 of the 44+ are ALL FAKE 5 [star] reviews.”

The phony reviews didn’t stop there. SCW posits that Molinker employees obtained and redeemed promo codes in order to access the US App Store and publish an “endless slew of fake postings.” (Ever an opportunist, SCW also wrote: “I think I deserve a [sic] investigations reward for unearthing this blatant attempt at misleading & stealing from the public.”)

Schiller leapt to action and removed the apps. “Yes, this developer’s apps have been removed from the App Store and their ratings no longer appear either,” Schiller wrote to SCW and iPhoneography.

Molinker claimed ignorance in a brief statement given to the appfreak blog. “We got [an] email from Apple yesterday [Sunday 6th] which told us our contract [has] changed to pending status. Actually, we do not know what’s wrong so far. We had contacted Apple for such sudden changes, hope we can get quick response and actions from Apple.”

Wired suggests that it’s precisely because there’s no try-before-you-buy that consumers buy crappy applications based on (in this case, fake) reviews.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/183987/ratings_scandal_kills_more_than_1000_iphone_apps.html

This holiday shopping season, retailers are trying to capitalize on the still niche, but poised to boom, market of mobile shoppers.

Some 19% of Americans will use their mobile devices for shopping this holiday season, according to a Deloitte survey. The number is twice as high for young consumers: 39% of those 18 to 29 say they’ll use their phones to find store locations, obtain coupons and sales information and research products and prices. One-quarter of all who plan to use their phones to shop say they will make purchases on the devices.

The mobile shopping market is small, even if the sales numbers seem impressive at first blush: $750 million. But that represents about half of 1% of online sales, and is a pittance in the larger $2.3 trillion retail industry.

The trade publication Internet Retailer reported this month that 112 retailers have m-commerce sites and/or apps, and several have more than one.

Toys R Us and Walgreens added mobile sites this week. Sears, which also owns Kmart, was one of the first major U.S. retailers to offer a mobile site, in November of last year. American Eagle added a mobile site in September, while Victoria’s Secret recently upgraded its site to allow mobile purchases

Given the pandemonium that is Black Friday, being able to use mobile devices to do price comparisons, check availability and simply browse other bargains can be invaluable. Stores offer so-called door-buster deals to lure people in, knowing they’ll buy more. Many such discounts are advertised in advance, letting shoppers do price comparisons from home PCs. But many deals aren’t promoted ahead of time, and other products that aren’t deals are strategically placed around stores. Browsing the Web from the sales floor for product and price comparisons can save time and money

The pocket-size computing power of Internet-enabled smartphones, which often also have microphones, cameras, and motion and location sensors, allow consumers to “interact with the world wherever we are, whatever we’re doing,” says Nita Rollins, a futurist with the digital marketing agency Resource Interactive

“The majority of American consumers will be mobile device-centric in a few years,” Rollins says. “Now that it’s technologically feasible, possessing such power literally in the palm of our hands is quite irresistible.”

Designed for use on small devices

Mobile shopping sites typically offer fewer features than regular websites but are sized for small screens and are more easily navigable. Some, such as Best Buy’s, allow consumers to zoom right to checkout on the mobile site, while others, including Wal-Mart’s and Target’s, direct users back to their regular sites for the final purchase.

If you try to access a regular website from a phone, “depending on the device, the experience ranges from awkward to not able,” says Jason Taylor, vice president of mobile products for Usablenet, which developed several retailers’ mobile sites. “Most of the time, you would be not able to do it.”

Along with mobile sites, there are also thousands of applications, or apps, often for iPhones but increasingly for any Internet-enabled smartphone, which make mobile shopping easier.

The price and product comparison site PriceGrabber.com, which has had a mobile site since 2004, is adding an iPhone app soon with a landscape format that makes it easier to view products. The existing mobile site, which is “not very sexy or exciting,” already gets about 45,000 hits a day, says PriceGrabber CEO Laura Conrad.

“It puts the desktop and the Internet in people’s hands,” Conrad. “People want to do their shopping when they want to do it.”

Some of the latest in mobile retail:

•Best Buy. The electronics retailer has had a mobile site since June; it became fully functioning for purchases at the end of September. Michele Azar, Best Buy’s vice president of emerging channels, says even though the retailer thought it important for customers to be able to buy easily on their devices, she says that wasn’t the driving force behind the move to mobile.

“When customers are mobile, they expect to shop, learn and buy,” says Azar.

•Toys R Us. The toy store chain added a mobile site this week. Greg Ahearn, senior vice president of marketing and e-commerce, says it’s designed so consumers can quickly find stores, get “mom ratings” and product descriptions, and make purchases.

“Mobile technology use is growing among all age ranges,” says Ahearn. ” Some youngsters have their own phones and are looking things up, showing them to Mom and Dad and putting the items on their holiday wish lists.”

•EBay. EBay’s mobile website attracts 1 million visitors a day, the company says. EBay expects its mobile commerce – which includes a new iPhone deals app, as of this week – to quadruple in 2010, and says it will do $500 million in sales this year, or two-thirds of all mobile sales.

“It’s quite possible more people this year will use mobile commerce through eBay and avoid the stores altogether,” says Steve Yankovich, eBay’s vice president of business solutions and mobile.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2009-11-27-retail27_CV_N.htm