What’s the best app for transcribing recorded interviews, speeches, videos or other audio content?

Below, I’ve rounded up a few free apps for manually transcribing long interviews. I spent the weekend using the free Transcribe tool for Google Chrome, an elegant, simple add-on that gives you the ability to slow down or speed up a recording while transcribing. It works on both Macs and PCs. Here’s more about Transcribe for Chrome:

* Single key keyboard shortcuts – to pause, slow-down, speed-up, rewind or fast-forward the audio clip.
* Auto-saves your transcribed text with EVERY keystroke locally in your browser.
* Works completely offline – you don’t need an Internet connection to use Transcribe! Just click on the Transcribe icon on the Chrome New Tab page anytime, and the Transcribe app will open.
* We don’t store or process your audio clips on our server – everything happens locally on your browser. Your data is yours.

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To celebrate the fifth birthday of the Kindle, Amazon has released a list of the most popular free apps of all time on the Kindle Fire. We’ve linked to the free apps below–how many have you played?

Top 5 Free apps of all time on Kindle Fire

1. Angry Birds Free

2. Netflix

3. Temple Run

4. Solitaire

5. Fruit Ninja Free

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As you probably know, Apple gives away a free iOS app each week. AppNewser hasn’t covered this in a while because, but the apps haven’t been interesting. Today’s app is different.

Act fast and you can get Solar Walk free for your iPad or iPhone. This is a real time 3D model of our solar system, including planets, their moons, major satellites, and interesting stellar objects like comets. This app is a lot of fun, and in fact I had to force myself to put down the iPad so I could write this post. I was lost in the incredibly detailed imagery for Mars.

You can find the app in iTunes. Be sure to get today; Apple will offer a different app for free tomorrow.

If you’re a fan of the “run down a long path and try not to mess up” type of games then I have a treat for you.

Temple Run Brave is a tie-in game for the recently released Disnet/Pixar movie Brave. It has the same basic game play as  Temple Run, only with a different character and new set decorations. You can win the game by dodging obstacles, shooting at targets, and trying not ot die.

It’s rather odd that the app is free today. Apple usually has just a single free app each week, which they announce on Friday I’m pretty sure that this app was free last week as well. But maybe I’m wrong. In any case, go getthe app now while it’s free.

You can find the app in iTunes.

Apple’s free app this week is Extreme Skater HD.

This is one of those games where the developers eschewed usual button style controls in favor of using the iPad’s accelerometer. You control the player by tilting the iPad left and right, and for some moves you’ll also need to swipe the screen. Read more

Apple’s free iOS app this week is a rather sophisticated photo booth app for the iPad and iPhone.

IncrediBooth jumps into the hot photo app niche with a twist. Do you recall the old photo booths which used be be found in malls and department stores?  Those booths printed photos in a strip, and this app brings that retro idea to iOS.

The app takes photos in sets of 4, and once you have them you can also add filters (a la Instagram) to change the appearance of the photos. The photos can be shared via Facebook, Twitter, and email as a set or as singles.

I’m not big on taking photos, but the retro concept of a 4-poack is appealing. I think I’d use the app at least once just to share the photos.

You can find the app in iTunes.

Each Friday Apple gives away a free app, an this week the pp is iBlast Moki 2 HD.

At first glance this game looks to be an Angry Birds clone , but it’s more complex than that. It’s more of a Rube Goldberg type of a game. You build a solution for each level out of cute little characters, each with their own special skill. There’s far more to the level than just firing things out of a catapult.

You can watch the tralier after the break for more details, or you can head on over to iTunes and get the app. Read more

Each Friday Apple gives away another free app in iTunes, and today you can get the pro version of the travel app Kayak for free.

I don’t travel enough to really need it, myself, but this looks to be a useful app. It will let you book flights, hotel rooms, and car rentals in cities all over the world. You can compare deals, check flight status, and view and manage your trip itinerary.

But I have to say that I’m not sure I see the value of this app; I think a web browser and regular websites can do all this just fine. Plus I don’t think a touchscreen is the best tool for searching; that requires a keyboard.

Still, it’s a free app.

iTunes

Apple gives away a free app in iTunes each week, and the current app is definitely one you’ll want to get. 360 Panorama is an iPad and iPhone app which helps users to stitch together photographs to make a seamless panoramic shot.

This app will help budding photographers put together higher quality shots which can then be shared via Facebook, email, and more. While that might not sound impressive, I recall from my computer vision class in college that this trick takes a fair amount of skill to implement properly. (And it’s also really cool.)

The app is normally a buck but for now you can find it for free in iTunes.

If you’ve beaten all the levels of Angry Birds (including the recent expansion pack for AB: Space) and are looking for another chance to shoot stuff with a slingshot, I have a game for you.

It’s called Catapult Kings, and in this time game you get to shoot rocks, fireballs, time bombs, and meteors at bridges, castles, and other targets.

As you can see from the screen shot at right, this game gives you a first person perspective. You’re behind the catapult when you fire, and that makes it a little harder to correctly judge the speed and angle of the shot. I think it makes the game mucg more fun,

You can find the app in iTunes for both iPhone and iPad.