Gadling

Smartphone travel apps seem to have something for everyone. When new technology can be adapted or designed for smartphone use, developers rush to make an app featuring one version or another of it. Relying on existing data, many travel apps don’t really do anything unique though. Collecting, sorting or regurgitating information that is “nice to have” can be helpful and even entertaining. But some travel apps bring “must-have” features, tasks and abilities to hand, literally enabling the user to positively impact their travel experience with just a few taps.

“There are seemingly millions of smartphone apps out there designed to make traveling easier, but not all of them are very good,” said Brett Snyder, founder of air travel assistance site Cranky Concierge in a CNN report.

Travelers into mobile applications that aid them on the road know that there is no shortage of location-based apps, tracking our every move, sharing it with others if we so choose and even making an automatic travel log of where we have been.

Crowd-sourcing apps bring a “something is better than nothing” direction to our quest for a good restaurant, hotel, grocery store or other place when traveling. Organization apps help us sort photos, contact information, frequent flier numbers and more. Phone version apps of desktop programs can let us almost bring the office along on the trip too.

None of the above actually do anything though. Other smartphone apps do.

“Every company seems to think that it needs an app to be cool, but not every app is worth the effort,” says Snyder.

Hertz Gold Plus Rewards members, for example, now can upgrade their rental via smartphone. Using their Hertz app for android or iPhone, members are actually doing something: modifying an existing reservation.

Prior to customers’ arrival at the airport, Hertz will send a text notifying them about their reservation. Clicking a link in the message produces three options: switching to a different car at no additional cost, the deal of the day or a selection of upgrades.

Airline apps that allow an electronic boarding pass help us save time at the airport and make a tiny green impression too by avoiding the need to print one. United, American, Delta Airlines and others also allow actually doing something by booking flights via their app. In the air, GoGo’s wireless Internet app provides quick and easy access for connecting.

On the ground, retail apps like the Starbucks version let us store funds to be spent later in a Starbucks store equipped to handle them. That eliminates the need for cash or, more importantly for travel safety concerns, fumbling with a wallet or purse for payment by using that phone that is probably in the traveler’s hand anyway.

In a foreign land, apps that read signs written in a language travelers are not familiar with, then translate it into understandable text can keep us from getting lost. Better yet: talking apps break language barriers by recording and translating an unknown language. I have actually had conversations with people met on the road when neither one of us spoke each other’s language using such an app.

Still, with all that the thousands of apps for smartphones have enabled us to do, there is a need for more.

Searching for apps that actually do something, the Verizon Innovative App Challenge is a creative competition for middle and high school students. Working with a faculty advisor, teams of students developed original mobile app concepts that address a real need or problem in their school or community, as we see in this video:

[Photo Credit- Flickr user Moomettes]

For folks like you and me, Lake Malawi sounds like an exotic, far-off destination. For hundreds of thousands of people, it’s home. The lake gives them life, providing water for their fields, fish to eat and sell, and a convenient mode of transport. Malawi is a poor country, however, and the villagers along the lake have little access to healthcare or even roads to get them to the nearest doctor.

Now a project is underway to refurbish Africa’s oldest motor-powered boat and turn it into a free mobile clinic to bring basic healthcare to settlements along Lake Malawi’s thousand miles of shoreline.

The Chauncy Maples was built in 1899 and carried in pieces overland to the lake, where it was reassembled and used for many years as a missionary school, clinic and refuge for runaway slaves. It later became a ferry. Mothballed in 1992, it’s now being completely refitted in a cooperative effort between the government of Malawi and the Chauncy Maples Malawi Trust. Donations for this worthy effort are welcome.

This video by the A+B=FilmUnit shows the work on the ship and some beautiful imagery of the lake itself. The ship will be launched in 2014 and we’ll be sure to report on it. Who knows? Maybe a certain Gadling blogger will be lucky enough to be on hand for the ship’s (second) maiden voyage.

Every year, the British Museum puts on an impressive series of special exhibitions. Last year we had exhibitions about Picasso, Shakespeare, Arabian horses and the Hajj. This year looks to be even better.

First comes “Ice Age art: arrival of the modern mind” from February 7-May 26. This exhibition looks at European Ice Age sculptures, ceramics, drawings and personal ornaments from 40,000 and 10,000 years ago. While famous painted caves like Lascaux and Altamira get the most attention, this exhibition focuses on personal objects the prehistoric people could carry with them. Check out the gallery for some sneak peeks at what is sure to be a fascinating look into the mind of our early ancestors.

“Life and death in Pompeii and Herculaneum” is sure to be the hit of the year. Artifacts from both Roman cities, buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D., will be on display. While Pompeii is the more famous of the two, some of the most interesting artifacts in this show come from Herculaneum. Six pieces of wooden furniture from the city help show what home life was like in Roman times. These items were carbonized by the hot ash that engulfed the city and are extremely rare finds that would not have survived at Pompeii. The show runs from March 28-September 29.

At the bottom of this article you can see one of the most arresting displays – a plaster cast of a dog from the House of Orpheus, Pompeii, A.D. 79 (© Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Pompei / The Trustees of the British Museum). The volcanic ash covered many people and animals, who then decomposed and left their shape as cysts in the hardened ash. Ghostly plaster casts have been made from many of these.

%Gallery-176327%Next up is “Colombian Gold,” although the name of this exhibition has yet to be confirmed. The ancient civilizations of Colombia were famous for their elaborate gold ornaments, and this exhibition will display 150 masterpieces of the Colombian goldsmiths’ art. In addition to examining the pieces themselves, which were the most sophisticated works of art in Precolumbian America, the exhibition will examine their place in society and also delve into the origins of the legend of El Dorado, the fabled city of gold. The show runs September 12, 2012-January 12, 2014.

Things get naughty with “Shunga: sex and humour in Japanese art” (title to be confirmed) which from October 3, 2013-January 5, 2014, will display the hugely popular sex art of Japan from 1600-1900 A.D.

While the museum itself is free, all of the above special exhibitions have an entrance charge. There are several free exhibitions too. From February 7-April 28 is “In search of Classical Greece: Travel drawings of Edward Dodwell and Simone Pomardi, 1805-1806.” This will follow the journey of the celebrated Classical scholar and artist as they explored the ruins of a Greece that was still part of the Ottoman Empire.

From February 14-April 21 is “African textiles today: social fabric of the east and south,” studying the long history and continuing importance of textile art in eastern and southern Africa. At the top of this article is a kanga from Kenya that celebrates Barack Obama’s election. President Obama’s father was from Kenya and he has extended family that lives in east Africa (© The Trustees of the British Museum).

From May 30-September 1, there will be an as-yet-unnamed retrospective of the work of American artist R.B. Kitaj (1932-2007).

Also free is the Asahi Shimbun Display in Room 3, just to the right as you come in through the main entrance. This room hosts exhibitions dedicated to a single object and its place in the culture that created it. In 2013 there will be a mask from Sierra Leone, the Mildenhall Treasure, a modern adaptation of the Shunga artwork and a clock made by celebrated English clockmaker Thomas Tompion (1639-1713).