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Kero Blaster/App Store

5 apps worth downloading this week

Featuring a better way to organise your contacts and stay up to date, a brilliant NES-style shoot-em-up, and a AR translator app that everyone should own.

EACH WEEK, WE highlight five apps that are worth downloading for your smartphone and tablet. There are a lot of apps released on a daily basis, but not all of them are worth paying attention to.

This week includes a better way to organise your contacts and stay up to date, a brilliant NES-style shoot-em-up, and a AR translator app that everyone should own.

Table Tennis Touch
For: iOS
Cost: €3.59

- The premise mightn’t be the most amazing thing ever (especially if you avoid sports games like the plague), but you’ll be missing out on some serious fun.
- Table Tennis Touch allows you to play in tournaments, play career mode, and other mini-games, in what is a very well-crafted game.
- Serves, swings and smashes are all done by swiping your finger, making it easy to play but hard to master.
- The drawback is older iPhones or iPads (iPhone 4s or iPad 2 is required at least) will struggle to run it because of graphical demands so keep that in mind before you download.
- For everyone else, it’s a brilliantly designed game and well worth your money, even if you’re not interested in table tennis.


Yakuto / Vimeo

Black
For: Windows Phone
Cost: Free

- There is no shortage of photography apps out there, least of all for Windows Phone users who are spoilt for choice.
- Black puts a twist on the traditional photo taking by including numerous black and white filters for you to play around with.
- The developers have recreated seven different films such as Kodak 400TX and Ilford HP5. All you need to know is they’re all different enough to help improve specific photos.
- The app also includes editing tools like curves (which adjusts the tone of a specific part of the photo), vignette and fade. If you didn’t think you could do much with black and white photos before, think again.
- If you’re familiar with traditional B&W analogue film, this will let you capture similar photos without requiring a traditional camera. For everyone else, it’s another way to jazz up your photos.

Black Black / Windows Phone Black / Windows Phone / Windows Phone

Addappt
For: iOS, Android
Cost: Free

- It can be tough keeping contact details up to date. There’s always someone you know who’s changed their number or details without you realising it.
- Addappt aims to replace your traditional contacts list by updating whenever your friends change their contact details on their phone.
- It’s more flexible than the traditional contacts app, allowing you to group contacts by location, company, or title.
- Of course, there’s group messaging and emailing directly through the app too, should you require it.
- If you find the idea of updating your contacts list a pain, or haven’t updated it in a while, give it a go.

addappt / YouTube

Kero Blaster
For: iOS
Cost: €4.49

- If you’re a gamer, chances are you will have heard of Cave Story, and rightly so as it’s one of the best indie games created.
- Studio Pixel’s latest game is Kero Blaster, it’s another shoot-em-up but just as fun and as charming.
- Taking control of a bipedal frog (because why not?), you make your way across a number of strange levels blasting everything in site. It’s just as fun as it sounds.
- Its real joy comes from the controls. How it handles shooting – it lets you control the direction while it auto-fires – works incredibly well and movement is smooth.
- It’s not as long a game as you might expect, but you’ll be playing it again as soon as it’s finished.

TouchGameplay / YouTube

Word Lens
For: iOS, Android
Cost: Free

- Let’s get this out of the way first, Word Lens isn’t a new app, but it’s was recently made free (Google purchased it last weekend for those wondering why), and so is essential if you’re going abroad.
- Word Lens is an augmented reality app that can translate text into your native language.
- Even better, it doesn’t even require an internet connection to work, making it even more useful.
- It works better when you’re translating standard text, it has a bit of difficulty recognising stylised text but the majority of public signs and notices are written normally, this won’t be a major problem.
- Windows Phone users should go for Bing Translator which offers the same features.

QuestVisual / YouTube

Read: 5 apps worth downloading this week – 17th May >

Read: Have an eBay account? You need to change your password right now >

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6 Comments
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    Jul 1st 2017, 2:11 PM

    This is result of letting a cult like group involve into our way of life support by a blind and deaf pc brigade. It to late for change Ireland has little hope and maybe some other countries. The UK is finished it be very hard task to undo what has grown there.

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    Mute John B
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    Jul 1st 2017, 2:17 PM

    @: you mean Christianity?

    33
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    Mute Brendan Cooney
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    Jul 1st 2017, 2:30 PM

    @: are you talking about jehovahs? Mormons?
    Actually they are not that bad once you get to know them
    Admittedly they have some odd customs with blood and marriage and beliefs ;-)

    22
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    Mute Rowe
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    Jul 1st 2017, 2:38 PM

    Returning Islamic State Jihadis popping back to receive their benefits.

    195
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    Mute Rowe
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    Jul 1st 2017, 3:21 PM

    Send them back to their Islamic state and let e SAA, Kurds, Syriacs, Yazidi, Iraqis finish them off….https://au.news.yahoo.com/video/watch/36225430/yazidi-children-held-by-islamic-state-found-in-hospital-basement-in-mosul/#page1

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    Mute Ken Hayden
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    Jul 1st 2017, 2:26 PM

    More Rats leaving the sinking ship that is isis . There’ll be plenty more of this type of arrest in the coming weeks , however Mayor Khan will try and get them housed in Chelsea , in those new 1.8 million pound council houses .

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    Mute Mick Tobin
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    Jul 1st 2017, 3:27 PM

    Don’t be daft. Sadiq Khan’s alright. And the last thing he wants is more terror tearing through the streets of London.

    32
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    Mute Ken Hayden
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    Jul 1st 2017, 3:42 PM

    @Mick Tobin: Don’t be daft ? This is the man who wanted the president of the United States banned because he had put a temporary ban on 6 countries , while the mayor himself when he was a lawyer defended Islamic militants , pushed for Louis Farakhan to be allowed into the country , even though he had called for a genocide of white people , had shared speaking platforms with convicted islamic terrorists , has spoken at muslim meetings where isis banners have been flown , called moderate muslims ”Uncle Toms” and says the Met Police do not have enough funds to follow returned Jihadis , even though he took money and personnel from their resources to set up a unit to chase down people who said things against islam on social media platforms .

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    Mute Mick Tobin
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    Jul 1st 2017, 3:58 PM

    @Ken Hayden: I will look into this, but contexts do matter. The mayor of Rotterdam, also a muslim, has also been accused of sharing the stage with people with radical ideas, but he in fact told them to p*** off elsewhere if they didn’t like it here.

    Khan is right to shun divisions in the city, and my feeling’s been that this has been behind what he’s done, at least recently.

    But sure, it pays to be critical, and I’ve taken note of what you just said. However, I now need to badly go and play Irish tunes in the pub, so I bid you goodbye for now.

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    Mute Dave O Keeffe
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    Jul 1st 2017, 4:47 PM

    @Ken Hayden: defended Islamic militants? Can you clarify whether that was as a lawyer or as a citizen? Also can you clarify that it wasn’t perpetrators of 9/11 as was previously stated on this site?

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    Mute Ken Hayden
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    Jul 1st 2017, 6:24 PM

    @Mick Tobin: He was a legal consultant for Zacarius Moussaoui , the shoe bomber .
    There are links here to various news reports and video clips , if you follow them you will open up a trail . I will give you two links , one about Khan and the other about the Quilliam foundation .
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-27/london-mayors-ties-extremism-call-commitment-fighting-terror-question
    https://medium.com/@jonasspooner/blowback-in-manchester-and-why-quilliam-must-be-investigated-f9472be1f26c

    27
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    Mute Ken Hayden
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    Jul 1st 2017, 9:11 PM

    @Ken Hayden: In the second link you will also find a connection to Irish Jihadis . I probably couldn’t say the name here , but you will find it .

    15
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    Mute KingBen
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    Jul 1st 2017, 2:55 PM

    Why even entertain them. Round up their family and put them all on a flight back to where they came from. Free flight home, everyone is a winner. Especially the UK taxpayer.

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    Mute Richard Lippy Collins
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    Jul 1st 2017, 6:22 PM

    @KingBen: put their families back on flights to Leicester and Birmingham?

    8
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    Mute KingBen
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    Jul 1st 2017, 6:41 PM

    @Richard Lippy Collins: no, they are not from Leicester or Birmingham. I’d suggest the middle east somewhere, doesn’t really matter. Just out of the country that welcomed them and gave them free houses, education, health and opportunities.

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    Mute billy Dorney
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    Jul 1st 2017, 10:02 PM

    @KingBen: yep,lock stock,and barrel,,,total

    8
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    Mute Lukey
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    Jul 1st 2017, 3:13 PM

    Muslim and western values are not compatible we must stand up and defend our native cultures before Islamic domination prevails . it’s simple, Europe must wake up. Many parts of France,Britain,Holland and Belgium it’s too already too late . Ultimately it’s a numbers game, we must not ever allow what’s happened in Germany(2015) to happen elsewhere or else it’s all over

    99
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    Mute Tomasz Kuchnik
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    Jul 1st 2017, 3:05 PM

    There should be super severe law for that, if found connected to terrorist cell they should have UK citizenships scraped and sent back to Turkey, never allow them back. With law like this all terrorists to be will think twice.

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    Mute Pie O ' My
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    Jul 1st 2017, 2:21 PM

    Those pesky atheists at it again…. Oh wait

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    Mute Dee Mann
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    Jul 3rd 2017, 5:01 PM

    Islam is to spread in every country and this is meant to be a good thing….. come on cop on, their way of living not suited for western life sure most of them say it themselves, only one solution if you want to fit in adjust to the country you choose to live in and respect our Christian value and our country, nobody’s saying convert but just remembered your choose to move to Christian Europe, and stop playing the race card when you don’t get your ways….

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