Nowadays, with the plethora of information on how to live a healthier life, live longer, eat better etc, we often forget and ignore the importance of exercising the brain. With this in mind, lumosity.com has released the first brain training iPhone application – Speed Brain which helps you to sharpen your mind wherever you are.

This app is intended to take your mind out of its typical thought patterns and enhance your brain activity. In spite of the simple interface, some pretty complex science went into designing the app. The fundamental idea behind this brain game is to improve your processing speed and reaction time.

It tasks your ability to quickly and accurately determine whether a symbol matches the last one that you saw. Accuracy and speed will produce a higher score, which will be saved to monitor your progress. The score is compared with your friends who are also using Speed Brain. As the images flash in front of you, all you need to do is select “No Match” or “Match” as quickly as you can. You receive instant feedback when a selection is correct or incorrect, and the goal, of course, is to get as many correct as possible using the least amount of time you can to react and tap.

You can download Speed Brain from the App Store for only .99 cents. It is a fun way to go if you want to keep your brain in tip-top shape and improve your time and accuracy which will ultimately reflect on your decision making.

If you are always on the move and you own an iPhone, well, you could surely use the new application HearPlanet which literally transforms your iPhone into a talking tour guide. Released on Christmas Eve in Apple’s iTunes App Store, HearPlanet quickly climbed into the top ten on Apple’s list of paid Travel applications and is available for $3.99.

According to HearPlanet, the application with the same name contains audio tours of over 230,000 locations. HearPlanet uses your iPhone’s location awareness to find places of interest near you. If you select a city, for example, HearPlanet will tell you about the museums, stadiums, zoos, and other landmarks or popular attractions that are around you.

If you are wondering where all the information is coming from, well most of the entries match the information in Wikipedia. So, when you choose a topic, HearPlanet loads a screen with both text and audio of the Wikipedia article in question.

HearPlanet also offers a search option in which you can enter a search topic and location. Another interesting feature is that when you tap the play button HearPlanet switches to speaker mode enabling you to share the information you’re getting.

Integration with maps and phone numbers would definitely be a great addition in time. The company promises that new cool features are being continually added. Naturally, if you get the app now, future updates will be available to you for free.

This year, Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing delivered the keynote address at Macworld 2009. Surprisingly, there was very little news on the iPhone front with no new iPhone announcements contrary to speculations prior to the event.

SwitchEasy has released RebelSerpent, the latest case for iPhone 3G. The new iPhone case is based on the company’s well-known CapsuleRebel case.  

It is a hybrid case featuring a inner layer made of Adaptive Dynamic Soft Polymer (ADSP) and a Lexan polycarbonate “UltraFrame” that attaches to the outside of the ADSP shell. But unlike the smooth surface of CapsuleRebel’s shell the RebelSerpent’s offers a faceted, diamond-shaped texture for added grip.  

It also features tactile covers for the device’s buttons, and comes with  

- Two anti-static screen guards,

- A microfiber cleaning wipe,

- A Universal Dock Adapter,

- A video dock stand,

- A Dock Connector protector.  

The SwitchEasy RebelSerpent for iPhone 3G is available now and sells for $27.

If you frequently search for product information, user reviews and price comparisons over the Internet in order to get the best deal, SnapTell Explorer from SnapTell is definitely an iPhone app you need to install on your iPhone.

You simply need to launch the iPhone app from your iPhone’s home screen and take a photo of the cover of any book, CD, DVD or video game. The application automatically identifies the item and gives you the links about the product to Amazon, YouTube, Wikipedia, eBay, Barnes & Noble, etc. The app correctly identifies just about everything ranging from Xbox games, Pocketbook O’Reilly manuals, The Dalai Lama’s Little Book of Wisdom, Kurt Vonegut novels, to a number of more obscure books. You can get all the product information along with the product review at one place. The app also looks up the price of the item and shows you the lowest price. You can just click on the link to purchase the item online.

The recent upgrade of SnapTell Explorer adds support for local price search. Users can now view the availability and price of the product at local stores by making use of iPhone’s location service. You can also get directions to local store or call the store directly. This feature is a great addon to this amazing application.

SnapTell Explorer uses its proprietary image matching technology to recognize a product image from the company’s 5 million+ product database in only a few seconds. This handy application recognizes different product covers, including book cover, camera manual, CD and DVD accurately even in low/bad light condition.

As of now, SnapTell Explorer only supports the search of book, CD, DVD or video game. The application would be more useful if SnapTell expands the scope of product search from just books, CD, DVD or video games.