A picture is worth a thousand words and if you like to take notes for stories by snapping pics, then you should check out VoxPixl. The new iPhone app lets you record audio tracks to go along with your iPhone photos, so it is a great way to take down your ideas as you are recording stills.

The app uses a ”Siri-like” technology from Nuance Communications to process the audio clips. Each photo can hold up to 30 seconds in audio. Once you create a voice caption, you can email or text it as well as share it across social networks.

The app also has a pretty cool feature that lets you search these files by keyword or location, which is great for when you get back to your desk to write that story after making lots of recordings on-the-go.

Diet and exercise app MyFitnessPal has raised $18 million in venture capital funding from Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and Accel Partners, according to reports.

The app is designed to help people keep track of their calorie consumption and exercise and connect with friends for support in order to meet weight loss goals. It features a food diary to give users an awareness of their nutritional intake. The app also has a tool that lets users search for the calorie counts of items on chain restaurant menus. According to the site, the app already has 40 million users.

The Wall Street Journal has the story about the funding.

The venture capitalists backing MyFitnessPal think there is a lot more business to win. “There hasn’t been as much disruption yet in the health, wellness and fitness space,” said Andrew Braccia of Accel Partners, who is joining MyFitnessPal’s board, along with John Doerr from Kleiner Perkins.

Twitter has updated its music discovery app Twitter #music, adding new discovery tools. Version 1.2 of the app gives Twitter the ability to scan your iPhone’s music library in order to suggest artists that you might be interested in. In addition, if you have tweeted about an artist, Twitter will also suggest their work to you. The update also lets you listen to an artist’s top tracks, similar artists, as well as artists that your favorite artist follows on Twitter.

The app is also now available in a number of different languages including French, Danish, Finnish, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portugese, Spanish, Swedish and Dutch.

Twitter launched the app back in April. The app identifies artists and tracks based on how often they are tweeted about to help music fans discover new tracks. Tapping into Spotify and Rdio, the app lets you play

Most smartphone owners have dropped their phone once or twice, but a new Android app game from Norwegian developer Carrot Pop may lead to an increase in phone accidents. The app is called Send Me to Heaven (S.M.T.H.). It encourages players to throw their  phone as high as they can and then catch it in order to score points. Users can save their scores to the Carrot Pop server and compare them against the scores of other players.

Using the phone’s accelerometer, the app measures the height that the phone reaches as it goes up in the air. The higher its thrown, the higher the points. Hopefully players will actually catch their phones and they won’t end up smashed on the street beneath players. The company’s disclaimer  says that they aren’t liable for any damage to phones hurt in game play.

It may be an app worth downloading, the week before you upgrade to a new phone.

Do you have a hard time keeping up your journal? Narrato wants to help make it easy for you to record your ideas and memories through an iPhone app that is as easy to update as Facebook.

Using the app you can create journal entries that are short and sweet or long and thought out. You can write text or select images from your camera roll to share. You can import select tweets and photos and check-ins from Twitter, Instagram, and Foursquare. You can even import weather and location details to help set the mood or remember the location.  The journal content appears in a timeline, not unlike a social media feed, but it’s private.

Perhaps you need a journal for a novel that you are working on, and another to take notes for a feature story that you are writing. A cool feature in the app is that you can create multiple journals. It also works offline, which is great for a travel writer who is out of range. Read more

Should babies use apps? The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood has filed complaints with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against Fisher-Price and Open Solutions.

The complaint challenges these companies on the claim that “apps for tablets and cell phones are educational for babies.” Laura Moy of the Institute for Public Representation at Georgetown Law is working on the complaint with the advocacy organization. She offered this statement in the release:

These companies are violating federal laws that protect consumers by making totally unsupported and unsubstantiated claims about the educational value of their products … And not only are they breaking the law, they are unfairly taking advantage of well-meaning parents who want nothing more than to help their babies get ahead of the curve. The Commission should stop these practices and make crystal clear that if companies want to market apps as educational for babies, they must have evidence to back up their claims.

Read more

Locking yourself out of your home or your car will no longer require a call to a locksmith, thanks to a new iPhone app called KeyMe. KeyMe lets you store digital copies of your keys in the cloud that you can access in the event that you are locked out.

So how does it work? First you have to download the app and use it to take photos of your keys, creating a digital version of your physical keychain. Then if you get locked out, you can take your phone to a KeyMe kiosk or bring the digital files to a hardware store that will make keys based on these digital files (better find out who does this in your area before you run the risk of getting locked out).

You can also mail order copies of your keys. This feature would come in handy if you have guests coming to stay in your home and you won’t be there to let them in. You can also share the digital files with friends and they can go and get copies made on their own. (Via TechCrunch).

Disney has released a new iPad app that takes readers through the history of Disney animation. Disney Animated tells the story of Walt Disney Animation Studios through the decades highlighting the technologies that helped create the classics like Cinderella and Winnie the Pooh.

The app features a collection of interactive illustrations and virtual animation workshops based on actual Disney technologies. Readers can see how Disney animated films are brought to life from idea through to final assembly. Readers can peel back the layers of these animated scenes to reveal the work-in-progress animation steps and visual effects layers behind their creation. Readers can try their own hand at animation by animating Vanellope from Wreck-It Ralph using a 3D animation package based on real Disney software.

The app also features a timeline of all 53 Disney animated feature films along with including video clips. The app features more than 750 interactive illustrations, more than 400 short animation clips and more than 350 photos from Disney’s Archives. Disney created the $13.99 app in conjunction with app developer Touch Press.

YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen have created a new video editing app that lets you shoot, edit and publish videos that is similar to Instagram or Vine.

Unlike their competitors though, Avos Systems’s new app MixBit has better editing tools. Rather than just clipping videos, users can edit together strings of clips that can be anywhere from a second to an hour long. Videos are made up of clips that can be as long as 16 seconds each and a MixBit video can be made up of as many as 256 video clips.

MixBit lets you drag and drop clips into a mini timeline, where you can rearrange them. Not only can you make your own content, you can use the app to remix other users’ videos. Once you’ve created a video, you can post it and share it to the MixBit community. The app is currently available for the iPhone and as a web app. An Android version is expected late next week.

New York parents know that it can be tough to find a kid-friendly restaurant when venturing out of their neighborhood. That’s what Mommy Nearest is for. The app uses crowdsourced reviews from parents around the city to help users find places that are good for kids. It’s like Yelp for the stroller set.

Parents can use the app to search or review everything from restaurants and shops to playgrounds and hair salons. Kid-friendly restaurants are broken down by the amenities that they offer so users can search for restaurants that include high-chairs, kid’s menus or stroller-friendliness. Playgrounds can be searched by amenities as well, so a parent looking for swings and a sandbox can find their way. The app also lets a user search for bathrooms with changing stations and urgent care options based on their location in the city. The app is currently running a promotion and is giving away cash prizes in exchange for writing reviews.

The app is available for both iOS and Android devices. Right now it only works in NYC, but there are plans for other cities in the works.