Apps

Coachella drew more than 650,000 people to its grounds in Indio last year and organizers anticipate even more for this year's festivities that start Friday and go on for two weekends. With such a mass of humanity in one place, attendees will need all the help they can get to survive and enjoy the music. Smartphone apps Some say leave the smartphone at home, but ignore that advice; there are too many apps that could help improve your Coachella experience. For starters, you'll want to use Shazam any time you hear a song you like but don't know its name. The app, using the smartphone's mic, listens to the tune and then scours its database to identify the song or the artist.  At night, having a flashlight app will come in handy.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Google Inc. is under fire from a coalition of companies including Microsoft Corp. which have called on European antitrust authorities to launch an investigation into the Internet giant's dominance on smartphones. The FairSearch group alleges Google is violating European antitrust laws by giving away its Android mobile operating system to device manufacturers on the condition that its applications such as Google Maps and YouTube be prominently displayed on devices. Android mobile software is installed on about 70% of new smartphones, making it the dominant mobile software platform around the world.

“Take 500 milligrams of this medicine every twelve hours in combination with amoxicillin and lansoprazole for 14 days. Don't forget it should be taken with food, and I will see you in three weeks.” Ever get a complicated prescription from a doctor? There are apps out there to help you remember to take your medicine. The latest is  Mango Health's iPhone app, designed to make managing medications and nutritional supplements easier, safer and maybe even exciting by using games.

Planning, traveling and sharing a vacation with apps that have geography at their heart is no longer just a futuristic idea. Dated guidebooks, tattered maps and finding a place to eat may have been part of the travel headache in times past, but new technology and mobile applications have eliminated many of those hurdles. Here are three of my favorite online and mobile applications to help you plan, enjoy and share your vacation without getting lost or guessing whether the hotel you hope to stay in is close to the ocean.

When Silicon Valley wizard John Hanke developed Google Earth a little more than a decade ago, he put advanced, interactive mapping technology in the hands of consumers. It was a major breakthrough, but Hanke has moved on since then. As director of Google's Niantic Labs, he masterminded Field Trip, an app that provides real-time, location-based information about shops, buildings and services. It's available for smartphones and tablets. When used used in conjunction with Google Glass, expected to be released by the end of the year, the Field Trip app will be accessible to by voice-activated, futuristic spectacles, thereby freeing users' hands.

Twitter introduced a new tool for developers Tuesday that will improve the way the social network interacts with mobile apps. With the new feature, users tapping links to apps included in tweets will be able to view the content directly within those apps, rather than on Web pages as they did previously. If users don't have those apps installed, the tweets will include links to their device's digital store so they can quickly download them. The new feature -- called mobile app deep-linking -- makes things easier for users and should be a big help to app developers.

If the 5.5-inch screen on the Samsung Galaxy Note II somehow isn't big enough for you, you might be in luck. Samsung is reportedly working on two even bigger smartphones, including one that will feature a whopping 6.3-inch screen. The other device will include a 5.8-inch screen. According to SamMobile , a news site that covers the tech company, the two enormous smartphones will be called Galaxy Mega and could hit store shelves as soon as mid-2013. PHOTOS: Could this be what the low-cost, translucent iPhone will look like?

Playboy Magazine's new iPhone app is keeping its clothes on. Best known for its pictorials, Playboy and its new app won't be lacking in that department. But anyone looking for something that requires a brown paper bag for their iPhone will be disappointed.  "The app respectfully follows Apple's content standards and therefore does not feature nudity," said a spokeswoman for Playboy. "There are still pictorials -- they just leave a little more to the imagination. " Of course, any true Playboy aficionado reads the magazine for the articles, right?

The City of Los Angeles rolled out a new smartphone app Monday that lets users submit 311 service requests, such as to fix potholes and remove graffiti. The new app, called MyLA311, is available for the iPhone and smartphones running on the Android operating system. Besides being used to submit service requests, the app can also be used to pay water and power bills in a tab titled "Pay My LADWP Bill. " “Angelenos now have a direct mobile portal to vital services and key city information," Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said in a statement.

As a parent, you could assume that your teens have taken all of your lectures about the ills of distracted driving to heart. Or you could turn to a growing number of apps designed to let you know exactly what your teens are doing behind the wheel. Canary (for iPhone and Android) is one. It is installed on a teen's phone, and parents will be alerted whenever their sons and daughters are texting, tweeting or using Facebook while they are driving. Canary can also be set to send an alert when a designated maximum speed is exceeded.